Common threads · 6 books
A seminar on how understanding works: language, history, texts, and the limits of a plausible reading. Expect disagreement about what interpretation is for.
Books, curator notes, and what to read next.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Study the early remarks on language-games before the private-language discussion. Ask how use supports meaning.
Next: Truth and Method
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Gadamer places understanding within history and dialogue. Ask how inherited assumptions can make interpretation possible and still be questioned.
Next: Interpretation Theory
Paul Ricoeur
Ricoeur studies what changes when speech becomes a text. Compare an author's intention with the meanings readers can justify.
Next: Against Interpretation
Susan Sontag
Start with the title essay, then compare Sontag's criticism with theories that give interpretation a more central role.
Next: The Limits of Interpretation
Umberto Eco
Eco asks when interpretation becomes overinterpretation. Test how a text can invite different readings while resisting some claims.
Next: The Archaeology of Knowledge
Michel Foucault
Foucault studies the rules that make statements possible. Look for how a field organizes what can count as knowledge.
Also includes Against Interpretation
Beauty, experience, interpretation, and reproduction. Ask why judging art involves more than either private taste or a checklist of properties.
Also includes The Archaeology of Knowledge
Compare the archives, frameworks, and exclusions that make some accounts authoritative. Read criticism of knowledge alongside proposals for improving it.
Also includes Philosophical Investigations
Verification, use, translation, names, and speech acts. Trace how different accounts of language change what philosophers think they can ask.
